With the advent of advanced technologies in electronics and communication devices, design and fabrication of Integrated Circuits (ICs) have gained a lot of attention in recent years. ICs form a basic component of almost all modern day electronic devices such as, but not limited to, computers, cell phones, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), laptops, palmtops, and gaming consoles. Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) inverters form a basic component of any modern day IC. In a typical MOS circuitry, there is often a need for controlling the input (voltage/signal) of the circuitry and maintaining the voltage/signal above a threshold value for an optimal functioning of the MOS inverter. In addition, it is also desirable to design ICs with MOS inverters that operate at lower voltages than the current input voltage ratings. In some of the existing ICs, this has been accomplished by generating inverted or complement signals of a timing signal, where the inverted or complement signal has the same magnitude as the threshold voltage required for powering the ICs.
Bootstrapping is a well-known technique used in the ICs with MOS circuits for generating a voltage greater than the potential applied to the circuit. It is often used to avoid the effects of the potential drop of a MOS device below a threshold level. Existing bootstrap circuits utilize a capacitor to raise the potential on the gate of a MOS device to a potential greater than the potential across the source and drain of the MOS device so that the effects of the threshold drop may be reduced. Typically, to bootstrap an output circuit element, current is supplied to the output circuit element when it is not supplying an output signal. Further, if the threshold voltage of the circuit element is large, the standby power consumed by the circuit leads to inefficiency.
In light of the above discussion, there is a need for providing a circuitry that renders the ICs with MOS circuits operable at lower voltages and that addresses at least the above-mentioned shortcomings.